


Team Free Time: The Beach

by nurfherder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Beaches, Fluff, M/M, Summer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 00:40:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nurfherder/pseuds/nurfherder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean, Sam, and Castiel have free time. They actually have free time. So, nothing else for it: it's time to go to the beach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Team Free Time: The Beach

How many times would they get a chance like this? And more importantly: how often would they wind up working on a case that landed them in an actual vacation spot? A place people chose to go to, not just some tired old bungalow deep in the woods or the mountains. In fact, most cases had the tendency to situate themselves primely in Bumfuck, Nowhere. And the weather was almost always shit, and Dean was almost always cold. So how lucky were they, as the summer months burgeoned, to find themselves settled into a hotel on the Florida coastline? Yes, the beach wasn’t nearly as fancy as those on the eastern side of the state, and yes, Dean was packing crappy hotel towels to use on the sand, but Dean was definitely not going to complain.

Sam and Castiel had not budged in their hesitance earlier in the week, when Dean pointed longingly out at the beach as they passed--they wanted to finish the case they were on first before they did anything recreational. And so, after repeatedly calling each of them buzzkills, Dean begrudgingly agreed. As they were solving the case, Dean kept thinking that, as soon as they were done, another mystery would pop up and they wouldn’t get to go to the beach at all. But luck--fucking brilliant, sun-shiney luck--was somehow with them, and there was no call from Kevin, no call from Garth, Charlie, or anyone in their network. Their phones remained blissfully silent. So, three days after arriving, they hit the road, not for Bumfuck, Nowhere, but for the shoreline.

Sam was reading in the passenger seat; the very thought of reading while in a car was completely nauseating to Dean. He couldn’t get a handle on what the title of the book was, and when he asked Sam what it was called, Sam simply held the book up in response, as though Dean could read the title while driving. In the back seat, Castiel was peering out the window as they neared the shore. Dean looked up in the rear-view mirror, watching Castiel’s throat bob in anticipation, watching his eyes stare in awe at the growing mass of ocean before them.

“You ready for the beach, Cas?” Dean grinned, catching his glance in the reflection.

“I’ve been to a beach before, Dean. Many of them.” Castiel paused. “But I haven’t really tried swimming in this body.”

Dean nodded, shrugging his worries away. “You’ll be fine. Just, you know--” He held up his hand and cupped it forward. “Doggy-paddle.”

Pulling up in a small parking lot, Dean, Sam, and Castiel slid themselves out of the Impala, and Dean took a deep, deep breath of salt-air. He heard the cawing of the gulls, the roaring of the sea just yards away. Beach houses sprinkled the land on either side of them, and a few scattered groups dotted their way out along the shoreline. As Sam and Castiel picked out a spot to make camp, Dean took a little detour down the beach, returning a few minutes later and stabbing two very large--and very stolen--umbrellas into the sand next to Sam.

Sam was laying his towel on the ground. He looked up at Dean, frowning. “Where did you get those?”

“Two giant martinis.”

Dean ignored Sam’s baleful look. It wasn’t as though the umbrellas were being used--they were just sitting there unregarded a little ways down the beach. And where the hell else was Dean going to go to get them? He sure as fuck wasn’t going to a Wal-Mart to buy beach supplies for a one-time event. When Sam continued to glare at him, Dean rolled his eyes. “I’ll take them back when we’re done with them, alright?”

Dean finished erecting the umbrellas, and he watched as his brother stretched out his long form, leaning against their cooler as a makeshift chair. The cooler usually helped to disguise and hide weapons. Go figure, it was now being used for its actual purpose: storing away beer and water. Dean frowned at Sam. “Are you seriously gonna just sit here and read?”

“Don’t nitpick how I spend my free time. You’re the one who wanted to go to the beach.”

Dean rolled his eyes and nudged Sam’s floral board shorts with a toe. “At least you suited up for the occasion. You gonna put on sunscreen?”

“Yes, Dean. When Cas is done with it,” Sam nodded over to the right. Dean followed his glance, and the sight he saw made him bite his cheeks to keep from laughing. In the few minutes since Dean had set up the second umbrella, Castiel had managed to turn completely white with sunscreen. He was slathering himself up, streaks of lotion dripping down his back, down his shoulders and arms. Dean’s lips quivered uncontrollably, and he practically choked as he watched the former angel turn and bend awkwardly, slobbering out a pile of sunscreen two inches high on his palm and slapping it onto his legs and feet, the white liquid dribbling tragically onto the sand.

Sam looked up at his brother. “You gonna help him out there?”

Dean shook his head, because he was really far too amused to trust himself not to laugh. But eventually, his pity and affection won out, and he stepped gently over his brother to the former angel’s side. “How you doin’, Cas?”

Dean had intended to play it cool--he didn’t want to embarrass Castiel in yet another human blunder. How Cas could manage to be so brilliant and knowledgeable about so much and still be so inept at things like riding a goddamn bicycle, Dean was still trying to figure out. However, Dean’s control completely withered away when Cas turned around and Dean caught sight of his face. He burst into giggles and then guffaws, trying to keep himself upright and hold back his laughter with his hand.

“Dean, what?” Castiel said, a weariness catching the edges of his voice. “What’s so funny?”

“You--you--oh man, Cas--” Dean stood up and pointed to Cas’s nose. “You’ve gotta rub it in, it’s--it’s in your eyebrows--” He gestured to his own face. “You’ve got it all over!”

Castiel frowned, and after a moment said, “I thought I was meant to be well covered.”

“Well covered, yeah, not--Jesus, Cas, you’re a Yeti!” Dean doubled over in laughter again, trying hard to control himself under Castiel’s withering gaze. Dean stood up, wanting to explain but was completely winded and unable to stop his giggles. “If you don’t rub it in,” he gasped, “You’ll get a weird ass tan--although that would be hilarious...”

Castiel rolled his eyes as Dean once again chortled, slapping his knee. “Dean, I don’t see how this is at all amusing. Please help me.”

Dean, still grinning, nodded and bent down to grab his towel. “Dude, I don’t even know where to... we gotta wipe some of this shit off.”

Cas stared at him. “Dean, that’s your towel.”

“I know.” Dean reached out, his hand mittened in the fabric, and swiped down Castiel’s arm and shoulder, biting his lower lip as lotion swathed away into the sand at their feet.

“But how will you get dry later?”

“I’ll air dry.” Dean smiled at him, turning him around to get his other side. “Or I’ll just steal Sam’s.”

“Sam’s towel will be covered in sand. That will be very irritating.”

“Well, whatever, ok? I’m not worried about it.” Dean handed Castiel the towel and motioned for him to take care of his own legs. Dean smiled again, shaking his head. “Can’t believe you didn’t know how to put this stuff on.”

“I never had a need to before,” Castiel said quietly, wiping down his calves and dropping the towel to his feet. Dean hesitated for a moment, his amusement rapidly dissipating. He chewed on his lip, then dipped to pick up the sunscreen.

“You didn’t get your neck before. Or your ears, and those burn easily.” Dean said, as though he wasn’t aware of the sudden sadness that had crossed Castiel’s face. Dean resumed normality; he was good at that by now. But Castiel had been doing much better these days; there were only a few melancholy moments where Cas seemed unreachable. That, of course, did not mean that Dean ever stopped trying to reach him.

Dean poured a little lotion into his hands, showing Castiel the amount the held in his palm, then turned Castiel around and rubbed the back of his neck, reaching up to tweak the tops of his ears, already a little pink from the sun. He tapped Castiel’s shoulder gently, holding out his hands delicately to keep the sunscreen on his fingers. “Face me.”

Castiel obeyed, and Dean helped to apply the lotion back onto his face, over his sharp cheekbones and furrowed brow. He smoothed the remnants onto Castiel’s shoulders, watching as Castiel mumbled, his eyes and lips downturned in what seemed never ending disappointment, “Human skin is too fragile.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I don’t like it.”

Dean made eye-contact with him, his hands stilling on Castiel’s arms, his voice low and kind. “Alright, enough of that, man. We’re at the beach, and we’re gonna have fun today, ok? Or I’m gonna make you stay here at Camp Boring with Sam.” He dipped his head, raising an eyebrow and speaking softly, checking to see that his words were met and understood as his fingers clutched ever so gently at the smooth skin beneath them.“Ok?”

After a moment, Castiel lifted his head, gave a small smile, and nodded.

“Good. Now rub the rest of this in.”

“Aren’t you going to apply, Dean?”

Dean gave a self-satisfied smirk. “Please. This ain’t my first rodeo. I did that before we left the hotel.”

He watched as Castiel stretched down to his legs and knees, as he flopped his hands awkwardly around his back, trying to reach it. So Dean once again moved to aide him. Standing behind Castiel, he worked his hands down and around the wide expanse of his shoulders, rubbing low against his spine. Dean settled his thumbs in the perfectly intriguing dimples above Castiel’s waistband, just where his back began to curve into something else. Dean looked down at his hands, at the flesh that bounced back up against the gentle pressure of his palms, and he felt his throat suddenly go dry. He’d done this before, loads of times for Sam, for countless girls, even once for Bobby on a vacation he took them on long ago--it was just putting sunscreen on someone’s back.

But Dean felt different putting sunscreen onto this skin; Dean’s fingers were tingling, his chest was tighter, and he was staring a bit too hard at his work, staring a bit too hard at the move of the muscles beneath Castiel’s shoulders. Dean knew he had to dip his fingers down, catching just beneath the line of the swim trunks in case they moved, which they would in the water. He slid his hands lower, fascinated with the ease of the slide, the sunscreen slick like oil, catching the sunlight and glittering it back into Dean’s eyes. He tucked his thumbs under the band, heard Castiel take a sudden breath in surprise, and then Dean jerked away suddenly.

He slapped Cas’s shoulder, hearing a grunt in response. “You’re good here,” he said, and he moved away. He had tried to tap out as nonchalantly as he could, but his heart was pounding, and when he backed away he had no idea where he was going. So, he walked back to Sam and sat down near him. Dean peered over Sam’s shoulder in an attempt to once again figure out what he was reading, but words seemed rather difficult suddenly, and so Dean turned his eyes to the beach.

Suddenly, distraction! Merciful distraction, trotting its way down the sand towards an old, lopsided beach volleyball court nearby. Girls, a few boys, but mostly girls, some of them Baywatch worthy, were laughing loudly, passing the ball back and forth between each other. Dean took a deep breath and leaned back, looping his elbows around his knees, his discomfort of moments ago ebbing away. He had needed this. He had needed the bliss of inane people-watching and not demon-hunting, the smell of the sea and the salt and not sulfur, the wind in his hair, the sand between his toes...

“Dean.”

Dean looked up to his brother, who was nonchalantly pointing a bit down the beach. “Wayward angel on the loose.”

Dean followed Sam’s finger and saw Castiel making his way slowly but surely down the shore to the water, almost there. Dean grimaced. “So?”

“So he’s gonna get sunburned.”

Dean stood up and glared down at Sam. “I don’t see you doing anything about it.”

“What do you mean I’m not doing anything about it? I’m telling you.” Sam smirked back up at his brother, and with a few more grumbles, Dean set off down the beach to catch up with Cas.

“Cas!” He called, waving a hand, hopping a bit as the sudden heat of the sand nipped at his toes. He stepped with relief into the barest reaches of the water as Castiel turned to him, already shin deep in the ocean.

“What?”

“You need to let your sunscreen set.”

“What?” Castiel’s eyes screwed up, and he frowned, squinting against the sun. He splashed his way back to Dean. “What are you talking about?”

“Sunscreen takes, like, twenty minutes to set into your skin, dude. Otherwise it’ll wash right off.”

Castiel’s frown grew even deeper, and after a long moment, he threw his hands up in the air. “You mean I have to just sit and wait?”

“Yeah, kinda. That’s why I put mine on before we got here.”

“Well you could have told me that!”

“I just... didn’t think of it, I guess.”

Castiel closed his jaw and stared down at their feet. After a moment, he sat, childlike in the sand, almost pouting. And then, another moment later, he suddenly stood and declared, “This is stupid, Dean. I am not just going to sit here. Why am I at the beach if I cannot get in the water?”

“Well, you can get in the water--you’ll just regret it. You’re too pale, man, you’ll burn.”

“Fuck!” Cas frowned miserably, and Dean couldn’t deny the pleasure he felt in his chest whenever he heard Castiel curse--not just curse, but genuinely savor the feel of the f-bomb. Six months as a human, and he was saying that word more and more. It tickled Dean pink. He probably shouldn’t have smiled at Cas, but he couldn’t really help it.

“I guess I’ll just go sit with Sam.” Castiel turned to head back up the beach, dejected, when Dean, his face turned up the beach, suddenly held out a hand. He caught Castiel’s arm as he passed.

“Cas...”

“What, Dean.”

Dean turned to him, grinning as he said, “How about a little volleyball?”


End file.
